Principal Investigator

SHIMIZU Kimio The Nippon Dental University School of Dentistry at Niigata Assistant, 新潟歯学部, 助手 (30267265)
WATANABE Hideaki The Nippon Dental University School of Dentistry at Niigata Assistant, 新潟歯学部, 助手 (70259224)
KOJI Toshiaki The Nippon Dental University School of Dentistry at Niigata Assistant Professor, 新潟歯学部, 助教授 (30178264)

An investigation was made on the distribution of foot bottom pressure during the mandibular movements using a measuring apparatus for foot bottom pressure. Six healthy persons who had no subjective and objective abnormalities in the stomatognathic system and the equilibrium functions were used as the subjects. The subjects were regarded to be subjectively aware of the major habitual chewing side. The rest position of mandibule and the left-right gum chewing were chosen as the test conditions of mandibular movement. Furthermore, gum chewing test in both the habitual chewing side and the other side was performed and the body sway was found smaller during left-right gum chewing than in the rest position of mandibule. This was consistent with the results of previous reports. When body sway was analyzed as the fundions of X,Y-components, significant differences in the X-component (left-right) of the body sway were not found between the rest position of mandibule and the left-right gum chewi
… Moreng. The differences in Y-component (antero-posterior) were significant between them, i.e., the body sway was smaller in gum chewing than in the rest position of mandible. Since similar tendency was also seen by the analysis of body sway in the habitual chewing side test, it was likely that there was no influence due to the chewing side of each subject. When the distribution of foot bottom pressure was estimated on the basis of these results, the number of points at which foot bottom pressure was detected was larger in left-right gum chewing test than in the rest position of mandibule test. And the magnitnde of the pressure was also larger in the former. Thus, it was indicated that the distribution of foot bottom pressure was much changed by gum chewing. The present results suggest that the subjects kept balance on foot bottom adapting to the mandibular movements for gum chewing and also head position changes associated with the movement. In addition, the foot bottom pressure during loading of mouth guard was measured. A custom-made mouth guard type 4, specified by ADA was applied to the subjects. The results showed that there was no significant difference in body sway between the rest position of mandibule and the time of mouth guard loading. Therefore, mouth guard loading was concluded to have little effects on body sway Less